The mountainside air was cold and still, and Simon Caradon was alone.

From here, amidst the valleys and the trees, the glistening skyscrapers and bustling streets of the metropolis nestled in the flat, easterly bay were little more than a faraway curiosity.

Even the eternal roar of Tidewater’s myriad industrial spaceports fell silent at such a distance. The ships that swarmed above may as well have been a steady stream of glimmering birds, wings twinkling against the clear, blue sky under the sun’s cool afternoon light.

In the hearts of her cities, and in the vast space between the stations that orbited high overhead, Avalon was the thriving linchpin of the Canzukan Commonwealth’s trade network. Goods from a thousand worlds and other installations – both within the Commonwealth and without – flowed through her ports in an endless cycle of noise and busyness.

But out here, far beyond the outer limits of the planet’s capital, where the terrain was too steep for construction, and the land too rough to cultivate, it could have all been a fiction for how real it felt. A fanciful story of half-forgotten myth. Were it not for the hazy tips of the remote, vitric spires that erupted above the snowy canopy of the intervening forest, Avalon might just as well have been a world of endless wooded mountains and perfect wintry skies.

Simon shrugged his scarf closer around his chin and exhaled nervously into the warm Hesperan wool. The boy was getting cold just standing around by the side of the road, and he was really starting to regret not wearing a hat.

His gloved fingers had been toying with the small cardboard box in his coat pocket for the last five minutes, and, finally, he gave in and opened it. Whether it was his fraying nerves or the chill air that had been the final straw, Simon was unsure, but, either way, he slid a cigarette out from its carton and reached up to wedge it between his teeth.

The soft roar of his jet lighter briefly disturbed the frigid silence of the winter mountainside, before he returned it to his other pocket and took a deep, shaky draw.

Acrid smoke. A flood of warmth in his chest… Exhale.

The worst of the boy’s anxieties formed a small, spiralling cloud just above his head before slowly dispersing into the crisp afternoon air. He felt his shoulders relax, if only a little.

It was okay, he thought: he could get through this. He’d only done this, what, hundreds of times before, right? What made today any different?

Simon winced at the thought and once more brought his cigarette to his mouth.

Stupid question…

The distant hum of an approaching electric motor snapped the boy sharply away from his inner concerns, and he hurriedly pinched his cigarette between his lips to reach up and make sure his naturally wild, auburn hair wasn’t so wild as to make him look dishevelled.

Patting down the creases in his coat, the boy straightened his back so he was stood at his full height – perhaps an inch or two short of six feet – and inhaled deeply. Filling his lungs with enough clean mountain air and pungent tobacco smoke that he could feel the hammering of his heart against his ribs, he forced himself to adopt a casual stance and an expression to match.

Finally, an old, weather-worn bus bound for the rural villages farther out from Tidewater emerged from behind the snow-laden pines and glided to a stop on the other side of the road.

Looking through its misted-up windows, Simon could see that the vehicle was practically empty, but, given it had stopped at all, he assumed that meant there was at least one passenger getting off. Only one, he sincerely hoped.

The boy caught himself holding his breath and forced himself to exhale. The bus pulled away and, in its wake, left behind a lone figure by the roadside fence. Dressed in a warm, navy duffel coat, a scarf, and a matching handmade bobble hat, the other boy took a long few moments to admire the view down into the valley below before finally turning and spotting Simon.

Simon swallowed and ignored the single, anxious ba-dum in his chest as he made eye contact with his friend, urging himself to smile as he waved him over.

The other boy was almost half a foot shorter than Simon, with strikingly black, wavy hair that protruded in cute partial curls out from under the back of his hat. His eyes were an unusual shade of amber that very nearly resembled gold, and the fair skin of his face was spattered with freckles that bunched up as he recognised Simon and smiled back.

Had those been the other boy’s most notable features, he would have easily been considered almost effortlessly attractive, albeit in a decidedly effeminate fashion. It was, however – for better or worse – the boy’s ears that usually drew attention first. Followed shortly thereafter by his tail.

Simon wasn’t a hundred percent certain about the specifics underlying his friend’s curious appearance, but Jaimie Winters had the rather unique distinction of looking something like a cross between a human and a mnyekari, if such a thing wasn’t so obviously impossible.

With large, cat-like ears each about the size of Simon’s hand protruding out from custom-stitched holes in his hat, and a long, fluffy, prehensile tail that matched the colour of his hair emerging from under the back of his coat, most people’s first thought when they saw Jaimie was that he was either wearing some very expensive cybernetics as a fashion statement, or had had himself fairly extensively modded.

Whilst the other boy was eighteen now, and could legally do whatever he wanted with his own body, Simon had known him all throughout secondary school, and he knew for a fact that he had looked just as unusual back when he was twelve as he did now.

In order to facilitate the rather unnatural lifestyles and reproductive habits of the Interstellar Age without incurring widespread genetic deterioration, it had long been a legal requirement in the Commonwealth that all children be genetically tested and – if required – tweaked before birth. Largely, this was prescribed to eliminate disease and ensure all children conformed to a bare minimum standard of potential strength and aptitude for the sake of their own wellbeing.

It was, however, not unheard of for some parents of wealthier means to take advantage of the technologies involved to give their children the greatest advantage their available genes had to offer. Or, more controversially, to give their children traits that might be considered aesthetically desirable.

Given Jaimie’s father’s known sympathies for the mnyekari loyalist refugee communities near Tidewater, it was Simon’s silent suspicion that Jaimie might have been the result of a particularly extreme example of just such a practice.

Not exactly a kind thing to do to one’s own child, Simon thought, but, for his part at least, Jaimie had always seemed to manage to make his appearance work to his advantage. Simon liked to think that wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t seem to get the other boy out of his head these days, but even he had to admit that his friend’s more exotic aspect came with its own distinctive appeal.

‘Goood afternoon, Caradon!’ Jaimie chirped as the bus disappeared around the treeline. The subtly feline curve of his smile, and the sharp glint of his incisors as he gave his friend a wave were easy proof that his more inhuman features were more than just piecemeal, bolt-on cybernetics.

‘Hey Jai,’ Simon replied, waving a line of smoke through the air from his still-lit cigarette as his friend crossed the road to join him, tail swishing behind him in line with his gait. ‘You’re… in uniform…?’

Simon frowned and raised an eyebrow as Jaimie came to a stop beside him, the collar of a Viceroy’s Academy blazer just about visible behind the shorter boy’s scarf.

‘Yeeeaaah…’ Jaimie sighed, his ears dipping as he cast his eyes back across the opposing mountainside. ‘Got roped into tutoring some of the fifth year maths class. Didn’t really have time to change. Apparently Viceroy’s are doing summer school in the winter now too.’

‘Eugh,’ Simon shuddered, imagining the idea of having to teach a class of struggling lower years and finding the idea decidedly disquieting, ‘better you than me…’ He took another quick, calming drag of his cigarette before glancing down at the side of Jaimie’s head. ‘Did they at least have to call you “Mister Winters”, or…?’

‘Ha, no,’ Jaimie grinned, flicking his tail to one side in amusement before nodding to the cigarette Simon’s hand. ‘You know how bad for you those are supposed to be, right?’

‘Yeah, yeah…’ Simon chuckled, nervously folding his free arm across his chest, ‘just like everything else worth doing, apparently…’

‘Heh,’ Jaimie smirked, deftly snatching the half-finished smoke from between Simon’s fingers and bringing it to his own mouth to share, ‘good point…’

Glad that his friend was too busy making his own mischief to notice his cheeks flush red as the cigarette so recently against his own lips touched Jaimie’s, Simon quickly turned his head away and cleared his throat with a short, nervous cough.

When exactly had he started thinking that way about such simple, familiar gestures…? The two of them had been friends for what felt like forever, and room-mates since the beginning of the last academic year… Jaimie had always been an almost notorious flirt, and Simon knew for a fact that he had a slightly less-well-known history of following through. 

Never relationships, just passing flings, but, at some point over the last year or so, Simon had started to wonder what it would be like to be on the receiving end of one of said flings.

No, not a fling. Something… wholesome. Longer-lasting.

And it had been more than just wondering…

‘So…’ Jaimie said, tapping away a column of ash from his stolen cigarette and taking a second quick drag before passing Simon back the dregs, ‘what was the plan, again? There another bus near here that goes to your place, or…?’

‘Oh! Um,’ Simon nodded, quickly bringing his mind back to the present as he finished his smoke and flicked the butt out onto the road. ‘Yeah, no – I uhh… Well, there’s this café just a bit up the footpath that… Um…’ He shrugged sheepishly, not quite sure what to say. ‘Well, it’s cold, and… you like hot chocolate, right…?’

More importantly, he thought, it would be quiet. Probably just the two of them.

No distractions.

‘Who doesn’t?’ Jaimie smiled, nodding in agreement and turning towards the largely snow-covered footpath that Simon had been hovering in front of since he’d first arrived. ‘Dunno what’s wrong with the usual places in town, though.’

‘Oh, you know,’ Simon shrugged, suppressing a whole flurry of confusing emotions as his friend’s tail brushed innocently past his sleeve, ‘just thought it’d be cool to try somewhere different.’

‘Guess it’s easier to get to from your place too…’ Jaimie mused as the two of them set off into the snowy forest together. The shorter boy spent a few moments peering up at the trees, ears tall and inquisitive as he took in the silent corridor of winter greenery.

‘Say…’ he said, ears flattening to either side as he turned his head back to Simon with a sceptical frown, ‘we’ve known each other what… seven years now, right…? How come I’ve never seen where you live when you’re not in the dorms?’

Simon glanced down to meet Jaimie’s eye, raising an eyebrow as friendly instincts finally reasserted themselves over the confusing haze of more complicated feelings.

‘Mum’s allergic to cats,’ he stated simply, breaking into a smile as he felt Jaimie thump him in the arm with the back of his hand.

‘Dick…’ Jaimie smirked, shaking his head as he returned his hand to his coat pocket and turned to face ahead again.

‘It’s just kind of out of the way, is all,’ Simon explained a little more seriously. ‘I mean, why bother when you and Lexi have your own apartment we can hang out in?’

‘I guess,’ Jaimie shrugged. ‘Still, it’d be cool to see it one day. You’re at our place all the time.’

Simon just nodded, swallowing dryly as the comment brought his mind straight back to why he’d invited Jaimie out here in the first place. If today went well, after all, he was hoping to be spending a lot more time with his friend out of school in general.